 Welcome to this edition of Quality of Life. I'm your host, Dave Augustine. I'm really excited about the next coming episodes because this is first in a four-part series where we'll be going on the journey of well-being. Taking us on this journey through the four episodes is well-known hypnotist, psychic, author, and healer by means of Ricky, Tony Green. Tony, welcome to the show. Thank you, Dave. It's an honor to be here. Thank you. This show, we're going to focus on hypnosis. So we know you're a certified hypnotist. How does one become a certified hypnotist? Typically, through a training program, you want to find an accredited school or an accredited program that offers hypnosis. I went to the Jamesville School, the Hypnosis and Wellness Center in Jamesville. How long did it take you to go through to get your license or accreditation? It was approximately, I want to say, a three-month program, just the weekends, though. OK, OK, nice. So hypnosis, what is it, I guess, where you see on TV once in a while in the movies or whatever they wave their hands or whatever or they have the pendant going? Is it really that's what it's about or, I guess, what is it to be hypnotized? OK, so yeah, some hypnotists actually still use items to help a person become hypnotized. I have some tools that I use, not a pendulum, however. I have a CD that helps to put you right in that state of hypnosis. And I also use a product called the Biomap that helps you relax and go into that deep state of relaxation. And that's basically what hypnosis is. It's a very focused state of relaxation. So as a person becomes more and more relaxed, the subconscious part of their mind is more open to suggestions. Do can anybody be hypnotized or is there different levels or the depths of hypnosis one can go into? Is it based on how somebody's mind is trained if they're real analytical or that way? That's a really good question, actually. I personally have not met anybody that could not be hypnotized. Statistically, they say people who are extremely analytical or with a lower IQ cannot be hypnotized. Now, I believe we're all in hypnosis at least once a day. That time when we're zoned out during the day, we can hear everything going on around us, but we're kind of zoned out in our own little world. That's a state of hypnosis. We've heard of highway hypnosis where you're driving down the street and you don't know how you got home. That's a state of hypnosis also. The first time somebody comes in for a hypnosis session, they'll go into a certain depth of relaxation. The more you use hypnosis, the deeper you can relax. One of the processes that I use for hypnosis, we start the person off at a very light state of hypnosis. As the session goes on, they get deeper and deeper and deeper into that state of hypnosis, which is a progressive relaxation hypnosis. Okay. Can hypnosis be used instead of, let's say today everything is pharmaceutical based to help heal or to cure things. You got a prescription for this, prescription for that. Can hypnosis be used as an alternative way to help people heal themselves? Absolutely. Stress is an indicator in almost every illness and disease. If we can bring our stress levels down, we can, I can't say everybody could, but the amount of medications that are being prescribed to people would probably be a lot less. Anxiety and fear. So many people that take their children or as adults go to doctors for anxiety and fear, they're just right away here. Take this pill, get this prescription, where hypnosis can help eliminate what's causing that anxiety and remove it from you. So you don't need that medication. Our body forgets how to relax. When we're babies, we can be folded up in a little ball practically, but as we get older, we have stress, we have concerns, we have worries. And all of a sudden, even at night when we go to sleep, we're not even going into full sleep any longer, but the more you reteach your body to relax, the less medications you'll need, the less illnesses and diseases that you'll have. Interesting. With the age of somebody, can children be hypnotized or is it more in adults where you're more susceptible to it or not susceptible where you react to hypnosis, I should say. That's a great question. Absolutely, children can be hypnotized. I went to the Janesville Hypnosis and Wellness Center for my original certification, but I did my continuing education with Martin and Johnson, and I did that in Pediatric, which is teen, preteen and children, hypnosis, sales and motivation. Oh, athletics and fitness, and then stage hypnosis, and no, I don't wanna be a stage hypnotist. But children, I've hypnotized children as young as five, and then all the way into teens, and they're amazing with hypnosis. They handle hypnosis much better, their results can be much stronger. They aren't carrying as much as a lot of the adults around, so it's easier to get in there, help them heal whatever's causing their issues and then move on. Okay. One thing with medications, as we were talking about earlier, is some people can't take medications or it doesn't, they don't react to the medications. Case in point, let's say if somebody had a stroke, and a lot of it is based on the brain and whatever, so it may not, medications may not work. Could hypnosis help relieve or help people recover from that? Absolutely, two quick examples here. The gentleman from Motten and Johnson, who has been a hypnotist forever, actually did have a stroke, and they told him he would never walk again. Well, he said, I'm a hypnotist, I will. And he does, and he's still out there training, doing training sessions with the NGH, and completely has rehabilitated a great deal from his very severe stroke. I actually had an accident where my head had hit the cement and I smelled a burning toast, and I knew there had been some damage there. And I used hypnosis to start the healing processes in my brain, basically, and it was the greatest thing. I don't get to share this story much, and you have to have a level of belief to understand this, but I started doing the hypnosis, and I said, okay, let's heal the prefrontal cortex, let's heal the right lobe, the left lobe, and as I'm doing this, I'm literally giggling because my left, I was working on the right side, and my left arm just floated up, and I just, yeah, and then my right leg when I was working on, and I was just cracking up, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is really something's going on here, not to mention the fact that I could feel it. I could feel this tingling in my head. Now, I've had clients come to me since then that have had head injuries or they've had something that their maturity isn't as developed as they would like it to be, and I will add that into their session, and it's always remarkable because their hands or their arm will start moving, they're like, this is crazy, I'm like crazy good. So I probably answered my next question coming up, is there such a thing as self-hypnosis, and then with self-hypnosis, then you hear about meditation. Is there a difference, or is meditation actually another way of putting yourself into a hypnotic state? Absolutely, so it goes, first let me, the meditation to hypnosis, we're awake, then we have light meditation, meditation deep meditation, light hypnosis, hypnosis, deep hypnosis, sleep. Now this is the reason, part of the reason why people, they say don't go to bed angry and don't go to bed fighting with somebody, because if you're thinking about that while you're going to sleep, you're literally programming that into your mind, along with worries and negative thought processes. So before you get in bed, if you have a habit of running through the day and while you're in bed, write it down, vol it up, throw it away, and then get in the bed, because you need to get those thoughts out, just don't do it in bed as you're falling asleep, because you are in some state of programming. Now yes, self-hypnosis is a very powerful, powerful tool. I use self-hypnosis almost every night, and part of the reason I became a hypnotist were some of the things that had happened earlier on for me in my childhood that I wanted to also recover from. And once I started doing self-hypnosis, it helped me to become very aware of what my clients would be going through. So it was an incredible tool both ways. Just like you went to school to get your certification for hypnosis, excuse me. If someone wants to learn self-hypnosis, would they have to go through the same kind of program or the same type of mentoring or whatever to be able to do it? I would suggest mentoring. If they've never had an experience with hypnosis, I would strongly suggest mentoring, because you wanna know that once you're in that state of hypnosis, the appropriate suggestions and or things that you want to say. You don't wanna get in that state of hypnosis and then start second guessing yourself and saying things that you wouldn't wanna be programmed for. So I strongly recommend getting mentoring from a hypnotist that knows how to teach self-hypnosis. Okay. On this show, obviously, we're not gonna do an actual hypnosis. However, I did go through previously with the hypnosis session with Tony where I actually was hypnotized. So I like to do is talk about that now and this interview program, the stages that one goes through if we could do that. Absolutely. So when you came in for the hypnosis, we started at a light state of hypnosis. And then as the hypnosis went on, it went deeper and deeper. And I'm sure that you can tell everybody that in the beginning it was a feeling of maybe not being, not even sure you were in hypnosis, just kind of like, am I, am I not? Exactly, and that's what I went through is like I was laying there and I was aware of everything going on. I'm like, I'm not hypnotized, but yet my eyes started to flap. Like in REM sleep, my eyelids were blinking. I'm going, is this normal or what? Cause I'm trying to make them stop and they just kept blinking. So that's where I experienced that. And then I started to, as we progressed, I started to tingle a little bit more like you had mentioned earlier. And those are two perfectly normal experiences for people. Not everybody has the same experience, but those are two perfectly normal experiences for people during hypnosis. One of my signs that somebody's starting to go into hypnosis is the rapid eye movement. As soon as I see that I'm like, awesome, we can really get started now. We can really start going into the depths of this. The second thing is if they, it's called the deep swallow where you're swallowing and it's like a, cause your throat is so relaxed. It looks like a really emphasized swallow. So those are two of the signs, but those are perfectly normal experiences during hypnosis. I don't remember, I think I was, but in my hypnosis session, was I swallowing as well? I, you know, once I see the rapid eye movement, I don't need to look for anything else. Okay, cause I could have swore I was also, you know, swallowing like not dry mouth, but continuously swallowing, you know. And what's weird is all the while, I'm still, I could hear your voice and I knew where I was. So I wasn't sure if I was hypnotized or what, or what was, you know, really going on other than I know as I started and you started, you know, we started going through the other steps. And by the way, I was hypnotized. We had to pick a topic as far as what to be hypnotized for, which is an important thing. You just want to say, hey, I want to be hypnotized. I mean, you want to have a reason for it, I'm assuming, and mine was, you know, focus on better eating, nutrition, you know, exercising. You know, so that's what the session was all about. Absolutely. And as you noticed, in the beginning, there were what I like to call mind exercises that we did, clearing away things. And then as it went on, and especially in the end, it wasn't as important that you heard everything I said, but in the beginning, I want a certain amount of awareness and interaction with the person who's being hypnotized. And in your case, you were a perfect candidate, were able to do everything, see everything, and just move forward in the hypnosis that way. And then towards the end, if you didn't hear me, it's okay. And some people, they get into hypnosis, they can hear everything all the way through. That's perfectly normal. They might hear it in and out. That works still. And they may hear nothing. And then they think, I didn't hear anything. I'm listening to your CDs. I'm not hearing anything. And I said, don't worry. This isn't for your conscious mind. It's for your subconscious mind. That's where permanent changes take place. Once we change it in the subconscious mind, it automatically kind of uploads to the conscious mind. And those changes just happen. And do you have any examples of that that you'd like, since your session, that you would like to share? Well, one thing I liked was before we actually went into the hypnosis session, we kind of, like you said, sat down and talked about, okay, what's our plan? Were you kind of interviewed to get to know the person like the type of, they are like, I'm more analytical what you said. I work with computers and everything. So you went through, here's the stages we're gonna go through, which was really neat. And then once we started going, I know the other thing was, as I didn't still know I was hypnotized yet, but then as you started going into the whole, removing the toxins and kind of the negative thoughts or whatever, like I said, I was tingling all over and then all of a sudden you said, just release and flush out those toxins. It's like I went, whoa, I could just feel the stuff. I could feel myself reacting to it where it was actually going on inside. Absolutely. And isn't that powerful to feel that and know that and to just say something really happened here? And I would love to take the credit, but that was all your work. Whosoever on that table is agreeing to do the work and that's the most important thing. Yeah. The other thing we did is then, once the toxins are so-called the bad vibes or the bad habits are gone, not gone, but we went through the steps, then you started the reprogramming or introducing the new healthy way. Could you go into how we did that? Sure, in your specific case, because you are IT, we use literal computers and computer programming on here's what we're gonna remove from the system. This is now what we're going to download into the system. Also going into what do you want in your daily healthy, nutritious choices and letting you make those decisions because overall we all know what the best choices are to make. We might not like all of the best choices, but we like some of them. So moving those up and making them a priority is the next step. And then giving the suggestions about appropriate eating habits, the small amounts needed, portion control, so on and so forth. I know when we were going through that phase, took it as where we made it the computer thing, but I was actually, I know my hand was moving like I was on a mouse and I was actually clicking on levels like configuring a system where you got this, yes, no, or sliding the levels like a volume control up and down for the good things and all that. And then we went, when you're ready, click okay when I was said to you. You always ask, say okay when you're done, I remember then I was clicking on the accept button. You know, making the changes take, believe it or not, that's, and I could still remember my hand moving like a mouse and clicking on the button and moving the screen around. On the categories that you said we were going through, so that was a neat thing as well. Absolutely, and our brain is this magnificent tool that we think is just already programmed and there's no way to change it. When in actuality, our brain does what we tell it to do. It doesn't have a mind of its own. It's following our mind, our past programming, where we've been, what we've learned. It can be reprogrammed at any moment we so choose. If we choose, I was doing this, but now I wanna do this. People who come in for stop smoking, one session, done. Doesn't matter how much they were smoking up until that point. If they've decided they're done smoking and they come to me for a session, I have a very good track record. I think I'm at 99% the one woman who didn't quit. Her daughter brought her in and said, okay mom, you're gonna quit smoking now. And the mom was like, no I'm not. So obviously it's not gonna work in that case, but one time and they quit smoking, they never go back to smoking again. Prior to walking in, they would believe that they couldn't do that. Walking out, they're like, I don't even wanna cigarette. So our brain does what we tell it to do. We shouldn't be doing what our brain is telling us that's past programming. But part of this I would say for it to be effective, number one, you have to be willing to make a change to be going into it positively because like you said, like the one you had, you're not gonna drag them there kicking and screaming. I'm not gonna do this and then expect hypnosis to work. Absolutely. The way hypnosis works the best is if you really want the changes. If you want those changes and you go to hypnosis for it, they're going to happen. Now here's a great story. I had a client who was on a Derby team and she had to work out to stay on the Derby team and be effective and strong. She did not want to work out. She came to me for a session to help her work out. So I made her a CD just for working out. I did the in-office session. And then she sent me a email six months later saying it finally kicked in. Now remember, this is somebody who didn't want to work out does not like working out. Other people who want to work out that come to me within a week, they've started some sort of program or some sort of process for working out. So even if you don't want it, it can sometimes work. It will take a long time, but if you want it, it's really gonna stick and hold for you. And then back to my session a little bit, I know when you says, okay, now it's time to make the changes take effect. Even though my computer might say, okay, click on start, or click on start restart like a Windows computer and I actually rebooted myself where you could kind of feel it as this wave come through which was kind of a neat feeling. Absolutely. And you knowing a lot about computers being an IT person, that was the best case scenario possible for you because you knew everything about that. You were actually kind of taking the reins a little bit too and doing some things that I didn't even instruct, which makes you like a perfect candidate and just really wanting these changes. But yeah, no matter if I use that analogy or a different analogy, it always gets a person to the point where they get to make that choice. I'm ready. I'm pushing the button. I'm letting this go and I'm accepting this now. I think one of the last phases was where you were talking about where you're really going in deep. And I remember you're talking about that where it's more for your subconscious. Excuse me. And that's where I really can somewhat remember where I really started to get relaxed and go down. And I was still aware of what was going on, but I guess I was hearing, but I wasn't listening for lack of a better way to describe it. Yeah, I call that the zoned out video game stage. You know, you have children playing video games. They can hear what's going on, but they're so zoned out and don't care. In this case, the third stage is the suggestions stage where I'm giving those reinforcing suggestions that are in alignment with what you want to help you reach your goals. At that point, we're not doing any more mind exercises. You're free to just relax and allow yourself to drift as deep as you possibly can. And just those suggestions go right into the subconscious part of the mind and they start to work. Now, if I threw in a suggestion that you didn't want, you would actually start to wake up a little bit. But because I'm working with what you want to achieve your goals, your subconscious part of the mind is going to take those suggestions in and start implementing them as it can. I think that's what's important too is, excuse me again, having the plan as far as what you want to go through because the wrong idea could get possibly put in, which might have other effects too. So that's where going into like with a patient goes to a doctor, here's your health plan. So to speak of the exercise, you're going to go through and the path we're taking. So I would imagine this is being another form of healing. You take the same thing. Absolutely, absolutely. It's really important to work with what the person in front of you wants. That's the way you're going to get the most powerful results. And you know, intrinsically, people want what's best for them all the time. Never fails. Yeah. I know we had about five minutes left or so, but just the kind of the experience I had, you know, once we came out of the hypnosis, you know, I remember you saying you're getting more and more and coming out and it was like really tingling and all of a sudden it was like, again, this whole weight lifted off. One thing I can say is since then I've lost about four pounds, you know, which is kind of neat. I have craving for broccoli and cauliflower, carrots, and yogurt for whatever reason where, you know, so I can see, you know, definitely the things. And then last night for supper, for a drink, I had Diet Coke and I took someone. It was like I said, you know, it's just like I can see where the, you know, programming is already starting to kick in. Like I think the day after I went to McDonald's for breakfast I usually got hash browns and Diet Coke and without even thinking, I'll have hash browns and orange juice. So I started orange juice, you know, of the healthier things. So ladies and gentlemen, you know, I never thought I could be hypnotized, but I was and actually it is working, so. And you know what? The amazing part is our taste buds change. If you think about it, when we were infants we were fed bananas and peas. And then eventually we started eating other things and then we were introduced to the toxins or the bad food. And so our taste buds changed to that and they can change back again. And that's the important thing for most people to understand. And the second thing is, yeah, not everything changes at once. You can still keep this and change this. You don't, it doesn't mean letting go of everything. I always tell people, we're gonna eat cake. But there's weddings, baptisms, birthday parties. There's cake. Don't ever, and I remember telling you when we were going into what I call the switchboards where you get to decide what you want to eat more of and what you want to eat less of is don't try to turn anything off because immediately you're gonna come out and that's the only thing you're gonna want. Be practical about it. Put it at the levels you want it. So your cravings for broccoli and cauliflower, those are actually your levels you moved. And I remember placing gnomes high up on my slide list and then like cake, candy and whatever else, more down on the one where I still think it's okay if you have a craving to satisfy that craving but let's say if you want a little heath bar it's okay to have one but don't eat five or six or seven. Exactly, the bag shouldn't be gone by the end of the day like it would be with me in the past. So it's very important to know as long as you're making the choices you're gonna stick with them. So, excellent. Do you have a contact website or something if somebody wants to learn more about hypnosis or where they could go? Absolutely, it's www.tonig.info. Tony g.info. Okay, we're just about ready to wrap as far as time. Do you have any other comments for the audience regarding hypnosis? Yeah, if you decide to become hypnotized and I hope you do, definitely find somebody who is a specialist in the area you are looking for. Like PTSD, I specialize in PTSD with veterans and people who have childhood issues, anxiety fear but also in athletics. Find somebody who really knows what they're doing in your area. Excellent advice. I wanna thank you again for being on the show, Tony. I think this was very informative, very exciting as far as this episode. Thank you, Dave, for having me here. I'm really, again, very honored that you would ask me. Thank you. Again, this is our first in the four-part series, this one dealing with hypnosis. Our next episode is going to deal with psychic and connecting with from above or beyond. So it'll be like what you show as messages from above. So I'm excited for taping that one as well where actually we'll probably go through a psychic reading as well is what I'm thinking we'll have planned. Absolutely, I'm very excited about that also. Excellent. So this concludes our episode or this episode of quality of life, hypnosis in wellbeing series. If you have any questions or require any other information, you can contact us on our website at www.wscsheboygan.com. For Quality of Life, I'm Dave Augustine and on behalf of Tony Green, thank you for watching.